


Braids

by seventeensteps



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Gen, Hair Braiding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-29
Updated: 2016-06-29
Packaged: 2018-07-18 23:30:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7335394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seventeensteps/pseuds/seventeensteps
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Stay still,” she tells him, “I'll braid it for you."</p><p>translated into <a href="https://ficbook.net/readfic/4540050">Русский</a> by <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/users/Don_t_follow_me/">Don_t_follow_me</a></p>
            </blockquote>





	Braids

**Author's Note:**

> I couldn't resist.
> 
> (this is now translated into [Русский](https://ficbook.net/readfic/4540050) by the amazing [Don_t_follow_me](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Don_t_follow_me/)! Thank you so much<3)

 

Sansa tells him about the white raven. “Winter is here,” she says, and after everything they’ve been through, after every war and warning and wretched woe, winter is finally, finally, _here_. And it seems like such an untimely relief they can’t help but smile for a bit.

 

Deep down, they know what this means, the white winter that’s now crawling toward them, either with sudden, tormenting death, or the slow, quiet sleep. Sleep, because they’ll wake, but what accompanies their bodies from the darkness beyond, and Jon knows this with frightening accuracy, is more fearful than death itself.

 

He was disoriented, and scared, when he first _woke up_. He was terrified that he’d turned into one of them, yet still trapped in this cold remains, ties to all control cut, a puppet to something hungrier and larger than himself.

 

But for now, false sense of calmness befalls them, soft and soothing like snow. The wait is over. Now is really the time to act.

 

So they act.

 

Winterfell is buzzing with activities, rebuilding, reshaping, recruiting, restoring, restocking, reserving, relearning, retraining. They have to ready themselves for the coming hordes of armies. But nothing seems to be enough. Dragonglass is rare, and low on quantity. Without it, they have to resort to fire, but wield it wrongly, and the harm is upon them as well. Only two of them have Valyrian steel swords, and normal weapons are near useless, no better than a bunch of sticks. They have to find a way, a strategy, and quick.

 

Jon exhales for the hundredth time, staring at the battle plans scattering over the oak table, and pushes the stray short strands falling over his eyes back behind his ear, for them to slide back in front of his eyes again.

 

This seems to be getting on someone’s nerve.

 

“Lord Stark.”

 

“Yes, Lady Mormont?”

 

She is sitting across from him, face schooled into polite professionalism. That expression, it pains him to see it on the face of a ten-year-old. "You have beautiful hair."

 

"Oh?" he inquires, eyebrows quirked. It’s so sudden and random it catches him off guard. He detects a hint of a smile at the corners of her mouth.

 

"Mmm-hmm," she confirms, “but it gets in your eyes.”

 

Before he knows to answer, she stands up, pushing her chair back, and walks behind him, the authority bleeding away. “May I?” she asks.

 

He nods, and says, “Yes, my Lady,” although he isn’t sure what he’s allowing her.

 

Small hands caress those dark locks, raven-feathered strands sliding through her fingers. "The hair here keeps falling back into your eyes.”

 

Jon doesn’t know what he should say, or what the right answer is in a situation like this. “I couldn’t quite get them all into a knot, my Lady,” he says, and consequently frowns at himself.

 

He senses her hands touching his hair. “Stay still,” she tells him, pulling off the band, “I'll braid it for you."

 

Nervous, he tries not to move. Lady Mormont works quietly, lightly. It takes him back to the old days when Sansa and Jon were children, Sansa following her mother around, pleading with her to let her practice braiding with mother’s beautiful long red hair. She often spared a couple of glances in Jon’s direction, and then the admiration in her eyes warped into distaste, before moving along, leaving his long, unruly shock of black hair behind.

 

It wasn’t like he wanted her to braid his hair for him. But there was this one time, he saw her eyes, and he saw how much she wanted to twine his hair into various kinds of braid she had in her mind, but then, so fast he almost believed he imagined it, she seemed to catch herself, and her face hardened. She looked a bit ashamed, too. Because Sansa Stark wouldn’t braid a bastard’s hair.

 

Jon knows Sansa regrets ever treating him like that. She was a child, and susceptible to her mother’s dislike for him. They’re good now.

 

Jon is taken back to the present when cold fingertips come into contact with the nape of his neck. He only flinches a little. Lady Mormont ties a band at the bottom, and announces, “All done.”

 

He tries shaking his head, and finds that no hair has escaped the Lady’s intricate handiwork. She goes back to her chair, smling. “Thank you, my Lady.” He smiles. “Sorry to have bothered you.”

 

“It’s all right, my King.”

 

And she doesn’t know how much it all means to him.

**Author's Note:**

> (thank you for reading!)


End file.
